The Purple Tick for positive Thinking Campaign

Cure Low Self Esteem in New Zealand

Take Action - Believe in Yourself and Achieve

Most adults agree, they've suffered low self-esteem sometime in their lives. Whether during their childhood or adult life.it's negative and even soul destroying. The trick is learning to overcome it. Some do and some don't, carrying around debilitating thoughts about their own self worth for the rest of their lives.

Their thoughts are unable to be operated on and unseen in an x-ray, so there's no cut and paste, like on a computer. The only solution, is in turning their negative thoughts into positive ones. If they don't, these people never live up to their potential and ability.

Starting as babes in arms, the best key is unconditional love, guidelines about acceptable and unacceptable behaviour, understanding and teaching children at their different stages of development and praise for their achievements. With their brains soaking up their thirst for knowledge they are learning the most in their first few years of life. They learn to move, crawl, walk, skip and hop, make their sounds turn into words and then sentences, make a mark and create lines, shapes and paintings recognizable by adults, so there are plenty of opportunities for building a child's esteem.

During school years, life mastery continues forming the basis of their adolescent years. That's when the tell tale signs of low esteem turn into negative actions. Using data from a 10 year study by Richie Poulton and his team, from the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Research Unit, they found that adolescent with poorer mental and physical health had higher levels of criminal behaviour compared to those of adolescents with high self esteem. They summed up, saying that interventions designed to raise self esteem can have beneficial consequences in reducing violence and improving mental health.

But it's not just our youth. Once in the workplace, adults with low self esteem are less likely to perform to their ability. Held back by lack of confidence, fearful of ridicule and rejection, their thoughts transmit messages of 'I'm no good' 'I'll never get it right', "I don't deserve' and other negative thinking.

Along with our aging generation, 'home alone' pensioners and grandparents, baby boomers being replaced at work by younger people and maturity instead of bringing wisdom, bringing loneliness and despair, there could be deemed a rise in low esteem within the mature population as well.

A study by Richard T Lovelace in 2003 further reveals that those with high self-esteem were better able to handle stress than those with low self-esteem. More and more studies world-wide are endorsing the importance of having a good level of esteem and self belief.

Those who have high esteem had mentors and other people supporting and encouraging them during their lives. Therefore, there becomes a time in life when they need to start to help others, just as they received.

So the question arises, how do we create high esteem. If we think of a roller coaster ride, some people love it and others hate it. Feelings and our interpretation of them, happen in a nanosecond within our body. If our hearts race at the excitement of a roller coaster ride or race at the fear of a roller coaster ride, it's pre-supposed that exciting and scary are the same feeling. If that's the case, then the interpretation of them, lies in the individuals mind.

So reprogramming of our thoughts about fear and excitement and all our other negative thoughts, is necessary to boost our esteem. Those that don't, let fear of the unknown rule their lives, versus, the excitement of achievement. Bad and negative things happen to everyone but the winners in life are the people that have overcome their negative thoughts about them.

With change constant in our lives, every part of society is engulfed in the need for us to learn, and with that comes stress.

We no sooner master the keys on our new mobile and it's discarded for a new one. With younger people losing the connection with the outdoors and relying on technology to give them an adrenaline buzz it's easy to become removed from personal interaction with other people. When they are out socializing, their actions are overshadowed with the misconception that drugs are necessary to enjoy life. A bungee jump might just be as good.

So, what can we do to help our country?

With New Zealand's 3 rd National Self Esteem day almost upon us, it's time to shuffle our thinking. Invited onto the International Council of Self-Esteem as New Zealand's only representative, Janice Davies started celebrating this day because it's an idea whose time has come. It's a world first and I like being a bit different, she says. We've got the red tick for a positive heart, so I decided to start the purple tick for positive thinking.

Calling herself 'the lady with nice in her name' people remember her because of her slogan. Janice is a professional conference speaker, business trainer, coach and author of six books. After the journey of discovering 'who she is" one her hundreds of goals is to reach her potential and help others do the same. She does this in businesses and speaking to schools and groups around New Zealand.

Suffering from low self esteem herself at one stage, she's learnt the power to create positive thinking and overcome a life less lived. The Oprah show has only had a few New Zealanders on it she says, so that's on her goal list as well. Meanwhile until that time comes, she urges fellow New Zealanders to make an effort and take some action to boost their own and others esteem on the 28 th June.

In Auckland she's holding her first event with a group of professional presenters sharing their tips and stories about personal success in their careers and lives.

With lots of tips for home and work and a free ebook and articles to download on her website, Janice is encouraging people to do the following:

• 5 Activities to boost their own esteem
• 5 Activities to boost another person's esteem
• 1 or more activity to help the community and the environment.

But the key is, she says, once you've tried it and like it and experience the 'feel good' factor for yourself, which research shows is beneficial to your health, continue the activities and incorporate them into your daily life. Then, like other winners, you to can achieve your potential.